When Yogi Berra thinks of Pee Wee Reese, he remembers a time just after the 1950s when he and the Hall of Fame shortstop would talk about the Brooklyn Dodgers’ greatest moment.

“We used to tease each other,” Berra said of Reese, who died yesterday at his Louisville home at 81 after a lengthy bout with cancer. “I would say things like, ‘We let you win in 1955.'”

In Game 7 of 1955, Harold Henry (Pee Wee) Reese fielded Brooklyn’s dream. It was an Elston Howard gounder for the final out of that 2-0 World Series clinching win at Yankee Stadium.

As far as the jokes, Berra recalled that, like a play in the hole, Reese would handle the them in stride.

A career .269 hitter in his 16 seasons, Reese went 8-for-27 (.296) in that 1955 Series, the only one Brooklyn won in seven attempts, all against the hated Yankees.

“He loved the Dodgers, he always respected the Dodgers and the people who owned the Dodgers,” pitcher Don Newcombe, who played eight years with Reese, said. “The Dodgers were his life.”

But it can easily be argued that this wasn’t Reese’s greatest contribution to baseball.

It was Reese who stepped up in support of Jackie Robinson as he broke the color barrier beginning in 1947, a difficult stand to take especially when you consider Reese’s Kentucky roots.

“That was a message sent to one and all that a boy from the South puts his arms around a black man and says, ‘Hey, we’re equal, we’re teammates, and we’re in this thing together.’ And that was typical of Pee Wee,” Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully said.

Newcombe echoed these thoughts.

“He was always a leader and he was sincere, and everybody respected him,” Newcombe said.

Reese was hailed in the 1972 book, “The Boys of Summer” by Roger Kahn as a “catalyst of baseball integration,” because of the friendship he developed with Robinson. But Reese deflected praise, instead reflecting on Robinson’s task.

“To do what he did has got to be the most tremendous thing I’ve ever seen in sports,” Reese was quoted as saying.

He became friends with Robinson in hopes of helping him be better accepted. Berra said this was the type of man that Reese was.

“He was a good man, a good shortstop,” Berra said. “He did everything right. He is in the Hall of Fame.”